One, Squared
by ChaserGrey
Summary: Miranda Lawson brought John Shepard back from the dead. Twice. Now she has to face old fears and new enemies to protect something even more precious. And this time there will be no second chances.
1. Chapter 1

Miranda Lawson blinked her eyes once, twice as she slowly came awake, the only sound in the darkened quarters she shared with John his soft breathing and the gentle humming of the Normandy's environment system. For a moment she wasn't sure what had awakened her at this hour- she twisted in bed and checked the glowing red digits of the clock, yes, halfway through midwatch and hours before she needed to be awake. Then a familiar pressure in her abdomen asserted itself, and she crawled out of bed, careful not to wake John. As she padded over to the room's head, Miranda smiled wryly to herself. Her fantasies of being a mother had been a little thin on some of the messier details, but on the whole peeing every couple of hours was a small price to pay. She suspected she might be singing another tune in six months' time, but that was a worry for the future.

A mother. Miranda straightened up from the toilet and looked herself over in the mirror, drawing John's old t-shirt tightly over her body and tracing the barely-there bulge in her abdomen. She smiled softly at the sight, but it wasn't quite enough to chase the uncertainty out of her eyes. She'd wanted this so badly. First for selfish reasons, wanting to pass on her so-perfect genes and secretly hoping a baby would fill the space in her heart left by an uncaring father and absent sister. Then for spite, once she learned of her father's little safety measures- a cancer in waiting, kept in check by drugs secretly administered as long as she was in his house, then silently lashing out to make sure she was part of no one's dynasty but his own. Miranda shivered as she remembered finding out, the grief, the bitter anger once she understood what had been done to her, and how badly twisted she'd been by trying to hold it all in.

There'd been none of that, this time. Being with John had made her want something altogether different- not just a child, but _his _child. A chance to see her best qualities, balanced by the parts of John that kept her sane and whole. But...

…but what did Miranda Lawson know about being a mother?

She'd never had one. Somewhere out there, of course, was the woman whose eggs her father had used to construct a viable zygote that could host the genome he'd had custom-coded on Ilium, but Miranda had nothing in common with her besides a few scraps of cell plasm. There had been female tutors during childhood, of course, but at the first hint that Miranda was growing attached to one of them- or worse, starting to look at her as a role model- her father had sent the offending woman packing. Henry Lawson had been a jealous God, and had not been willing to share his heir's heart with anyone else. No one had kissed her scrapes away or held her after nightmares- they'd just slapped on a bandage and offered her a sleeping pill instead. She'd learned about makeup from a hired professional, sex from videos hacked off the extranet, and how to talk to her sister from a syndicated column. What was she supposed to do now?

There were books, of course, megabytes of them downloaded in marathon extranet sessions after the first pregnancy test came up positive and crammed down with superhuman rapidity ever since. Miranda had worked her way up to the galaxy's standard textbook on obstetrics and prenatal development, gotten a semester's credit towards a master's degree in child psychology, absorbed the last ten years of the most popular parenting magazines, driven Liara to near-insanity with constant requests for information, and given herself a series of truly memorable headaches. And yet the only times she'd really, truly felt she might be all right with this had been afterwards, when John had held her, massaged away the aches, and told her that everything would be all right.

He'd been right about those things before, and always wiser than she. Miranda just hoped it would be the same now.

She snapped off the light and padded back to bed, curling herself up in John's arms. She'd tried not to wake up, but part of being an N7 operative was being a very light sleeper. She felt him start, breathe in, and then breathe out slowly as his senses tasted the situation and found it without danger. As Miranda shut her eyes she felt him nuzzle against her neck and heard his whispered,

"Love you." She smiled and breathed back,

"Need you." _More than ever_, she didn't say.

It was a moment of untroubled peace for both of them. Looking back, later, Miranda would remember it as the last such for a long, long time.

_A/N: I'm back. With a new pen name, because I'm planning to post some older fic I wrote for a different fandom, and frankly having two pen names was kinda dumb to begin with. Just a little intro into what's been going on since the end of Square One, here._

_And yes, Miranda was sterile. Might go into it more later, but for now- come on. She headed a project that brought a dead guy back, twice, and you think she couldn't fix that if she really, really wanted to? As the woman herself said, she's Miranda _fucking _Lawson_.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Yes, this is massively late, but after writing the first chapter my muse deserted me. I realized I had very little concrete vision for the plot, and that I had trouble writing Shepard…something that the plot of Square One neatly excused me from. Thanks to everyone who kept reading, especially commandocucumber for being my sounding board, idea generator, and general person without whom the story may have died. Gracias, amigo. And now without further ado, on to what you actually want to read._

"So, boy or girl?"

Miranda Lawson rolled her eyes and bit into her salad. "Why is that the first question everyone wants to know?" She blinked and took another quick bite. Cranberries and goat cheese over some kind of green leafy vegetable was not something she'd have chosen under anything like normal circumstances, but it was what the tiny colony world of Millar's Reach had available, and it was surprisingly good. Just needed some pickles, and maybe some of that green tea ice cream Kasumi had sent- Miranda broke off and frowned for a moment. She was normally a very picky eater, knew what she liked and stuck to it- yet another thing pregnancy was throwing completely out of whack for her. Across the table, her gene-twin Oriana smiled beatifically.

"One, because they're excited for you. Two, because they're nosy. And in my case, three, because it finally gives me a socially approved opportunity to snoop on you for a change, Miri." Miranda glared at her for a moment across the table, then broke down into a giggle. She _hated_ doing that, because for all her carefully cultivated Icy Operative persona she always sounded like a seventeen year old schoolgirl, but that was allright. This was her sister, and Miranda was getting more and more used to the idea that she could lower some of her barriers around family. It was odd, not watching every word and action, but odd in a nice kind of way. When Tali'Zorah signaled the Normandy that she needed an urgent meet here, Miranda had jumped at the chance to spend a little time with her sister before they took off after the next galactic crisis. "Now don't change the subject, Miri. Boy or girl?"

"We don't know." Oriana's mouth dropped open.

"You _don't know_?"

"Is it so hard to believe we might want it to be a surprise?"

"In your case, yes. Miri, you wouldn't let me rent an apartment until you'd checked the building's records for code violations, the landlord's personal history, and a complete statistical breakdown of the neighborhood. You wouldn't let me stay in one place because of the geological survey-"

"That was entirely valid. That fault line was ready to go any month."

"-and you won't even sit down for a nice lunch with your sister without sorting through every restaurant in fifty klicks and planning out three escape routes and a place for a last stand." Oriana folded her arms and gave her sister a challenging stare. "Go on, tell me I'm wrong." Miranda mumbled something under her breath, and Ori grinned. "What was that, Miri dear?"

"I said, it doesn't have to be three."

"Rest my case." Oriana leaned forward, scooping her hands under her chin and looking up at Miranda with more smugness than an old-line Turian Primarch. "Miri, you don't even take showers without complete intel and a backup plan. I won't for a second believe you don't know what your child's sex is."

"Brat." Miranda aimed a playful swat across the table, but she was laughing again, and Ori was joining in. "We really don't know. John says he'll be happy either way, and I'm trying to…let some of that rub off on me, I guess." She looked up, flicking her eyes back and forth a bit guiltily, and there was much less laughter in her voice when she said,

"Was I really that bad, Ori? I mean- I only wanted what was b- I never wanted to-"

"Shh. Calm down, you're sounding like an idiot." Ori leaned forward and took Miranda's hand, her face going serious for a moment. "Miri, I always knew everything you did was to keep me safe. Not for your own ends. You never did wrong by me. And you couldn't be like him, not if you tried." Miranda smiled and squeezed. She'd known. Of course she'd known, they'd both survived Henry Lawson's…intense approach to parenting with their lives and souls intact. It helped to hear Ori say that, and it was good to be able to talk to her without worry-

Something in Miranda's lizard-brain screamed at a level deeper than consciousness, and she reacted faster than thought. The table crashed down to the ground as she pushed it over, grabbing Oriana and pushing her down to the ground, positioning her body as best she could between her sister and open air. Seconds later a spray of hypersonic bullets screamed through the air where the Lawson sisters had been, splattering against the white stucco walls of the cafe. Miranda could hear shouting, a siren- and the sound of combat-booted feet drumming, heading in this direction. Hell.

Rolling up to her knees, Miranda chanced a look over the top of the table, ducking back down before another burst of gunfire could take the top of her head off. A half-dozen at least, humans or similar build, in the mix-and-match combat armor you saw on the thousand different pirate bands and merc companies that picked through the ashes of Council Space. Miranda keyed her multitool, then snarled in frustration as the external functions display came up red with connectivity warnings. She turned to Oriana.

"Ori. Run to the kitchen. They'll be watching the back door, so drop down to the basement. The north wall is just thin fiberboard covering a connection to the cellar of the building across the street- you should be able to take it down with a pulse, then get out." Oriana shook her head.

"Miri-"

"Don't argue." Miranda held up a hand. "I can hold this lot for maybe ten minutes, but they've got a portable jammer. The Normandy can get a strike team down here in time to bail me out, but _only_ if someone lets them know what's going on. Got it?" Oriana stared for a split second, then nodded.

"Don't do anything stupid, Miri."

"Love you too." Miranda looked up, saw two of the mercs prepare to eject thermal clips. "Ready…three!" Ori exploded into motion- she wasn't combat trained, but she had the same perfect genome Henry Lawson had lavished so many credits on. She covered the ground between their table and the kitchen as fast as an Olympic sprinter, as Miranda brought her hand down and sent a pulse of biotic energy towards their attackers, sending them up into the air along with a spray of rocks, garbage, and gravel from the road. A moment to catch her breath, and one of them went flying through the air towards her, landing with an audible _crunch_ about a yard away. He had barriers and already scrambling to get up when he landed, but too slow- MIranda grabbed his submachine gun and fired a burst into his back, then another when he persisted in twitching afterwards. Shouts and curses from the others outside, growing fainter and more spread out after a few seconds.

Miranda let out a breath, letting herself wheeze for a moment. Her little stunt show had put the fear of God into them, but it had also taken a lot out of her. Fortunately, her attackers didn't seem to realize how much of her reserves it had used up, and they were good enough to have some professional caution. They were pulling back, spreading out, denying her the ability to hit them all with another biotic attack while flanking her. Already she didn't dare chance following Ori's escape route, and with a little time they'd be able to get a shot around her makeshift cover. All Miranda could do was draw that out, and hope that a little time was all they had.

Once she had her breath back Miranda grabbed a couple more tables, pushing them down and giving herself as much side cover as she possibly could. One of the mercs made an ill-advised rush from one building to another, and Miranda pushed him up in the air high enough to put a few bullets in him before he slammed into the ground with a sickening _thurd_. The rest, though, learned. They moved from cover to cover, one of them firing to keep her head down while the others worked their way through the storefronts around the cafe. Miranda was wearing what she thought of as street clothing, which meant the kinetic barriers were too thin for her to risk much exposure to fire. Soon the shots were coming from the side as well, steadily chipping away at the tables. The back of her neck tingled. Any second now, they'd-

A giant tore a mile-long cotton sheet in half, and a lion roared as loud as the thunder. Miranda pressed herself down to the ground as the UT-47A Kodiak drop shuttle's thruster exhaust blasted the earth around her, whipping dust up like a hurricane. The Kodiak molted armored figures in midair, a dozen humanoids who were firing before they even hit dirt, shields coruscating as their enemies fired blindly, trying to understand how the trap they'd set had suddenly closed on them. Miranda heard a roar, and knew one friend was with them. The heavy crack of a sniper rifle, and she knew there was another. But when the heavy stacatto of an M-76 Revenant assault rifle cut through the noise of battle, she knew it was over. When footsteps approached the table this time, she rose to her feet with one smooth gesture and said,

"You're late." John Shepard's face was still hard, anger and determination clamping down on the fear she saw in his eyes, but he smiled, just a bit. He always did, to her, and she loved him for that.

"Sorry, 'Randa, but you know it'd be rude not to bring our friends to the party."

"Ori?"

"Fine. Cortez dropped two Marines on her position while he was on final. Their backdoor man took a few potshots at her, but they made him see the error of his ways pretty quickly." Miranda nodded, and strode briskly out to the street. As she'd hoped, the merc she'd shot and dropped had taken enough damage to crash his barriers, but not enough to kill him. He might even live, if they got him to Chakwas quickly enough. Time to see if it was worth the effort. Miranda bent over, socketing the muzzle of her borrowed Shuriken under his jaw. The man groaned, and Miranda leaned down.

"Who sent you?" The merc coughed, and blood stained his lips, but there was no reply. Miranda pushed the gun forward, easing her finger onto the trigger as red clouds narrowed her vision. "I said, who sent you."

"Miranda-"

"Not now, dear, I'm interrogating someone." Someone who'd tried to kill her, and her baby. The muzzle was pressing hard against the bottom of his mouth now, almost too hard for him to speak. Too bad. If he wasn't going to make the effort, then- just as John's hand touched her shoulder, a few words came out, like a strangled dry cough. Miranda eased the pressure. "What was that?"

"You think…you've won." Miranda's eyes widened. "You think…you can beat us. You think you can run from us." This man was no mercenary. There was too much belief in his voice. "You can run to the ends of the galaxy, Lawson, but it won't matter. The sun…will rise." There was a hissing from his suit, and Miranda cursed as she tried to get at the medi-gel dispenser on his belt. Too late. A red gel was already oozing out, covering his skin, and Miranda stood back, carefully keeping her hands off as the body started to jerk and twitch. Nerve toxin. She could hear John breathing hard behind her, feel the tightness of his grip, and almost hear him gearing up for another lecture. She wasn't in the mood to talk about methods again, so instead she said,

"The sun will rise. Odd thing to say."

"Maybe not." Miranda turned at John's tone, and found his eyes dark and troubled. "I finished talking to Tali right before your distress call came in. She and I were talking about suns too. One, in particular." Miranda arched an eyebrow, but she already had a sinking feeling what he meant.

"Haestrom." John nodded.

"The Quarians and Geth have started sharing scientific data, and found something that's been staring them in the face for a century. Only they didn't realize it, because each side only had part of the puzzle. Story of their lives." His mouth twisted, a trifle bitter, and he looked won. "We knew Haestrom was entering the end of its lifespan millions of years earlier than it should. By itself, that makes it a curiosity. But what they've only just realized is that the star's decay rate has actually been accelerating for the past eighty years."

Miranda's mouth dropped open. "That's physically impossible."

"As far as we know. But it's happening. And the same process may have started in three other nearby stars." John's boot kicked the dirt near the armored man, no mercenary. "Add in a fanatic assassin who dies saying that the sun will rise, and…"

Miranda sighed and leaned in against him for just a moment. "I know. But you promised we were done with threats to galactic civilization as we know it." Her tone was playful, but part of her felt a real loss. She'd wanted so badly to give her child a life free of the shadows and threats that had always cast over hers. Miranda couldn't be angry at John for a situation he hadn't made or looked for, and she knew him far too well to expect that he'd pass up this kind of threat, even for her.

But she was enough of a mother, even now, to mourn peace's passing


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Yes, I live. Although we'll see if I'm still alive after the end of this chapter. It is not, I assure you, the end of the story. But it is a necessary step forward._

Over the years Miranda had developed a carefully laid out premission ritual. She'd work out for exactly fifteen minutes beforehand, lifting weights with her biotics as she ran laps around the cargo bay or worked the heavy bag in the Normandy's gym, enough to get her used to controlling her powers while her heart raced and muscles ached. Cold shower to rinse the sweat off and keep the carefully regulated tension in her muscles, then she'd strip down her combat armor, check the barriers, update the navigation and targeting systems, before field-stripping the weapons she'd carry and reassembling them. She'd finish just in time to walk into the briefing room five minutes early, tense but not too tense and ready to go.

Everyone had their premission rituals, even if they weren't always so elaborate. One of the Normandy's most important rules was that you didn't interrupt someone else's. So when John stepped forward to block the briefing room door it threw her enough that all she could do was stand there for a moment. Not much, but long enough for him to get the first word in.

"Where do you think you're going?" His voice was calm, perfectly level, and oh-so-arrogant. Miranda raised an eyebrow, matching his cool tone.

"The briefing room, for starters. Then the armory, then the shuttle bay. I'd have thought you'd have this down by now."

"Oh, I do." John leaned back against the door frame, arms crossing over his chest. "I'm just wondering why you think dropping onto a high-radiation planet right now is a good idea."

Her teeth gritted. "I don't think we have a choice. I'm the only biotic field operative left on the ship, in case you've forgotten that. The chances of anything more than negligible damage are-"

"Low, but unacceptable." Now he leaned forward, actually shaking a finger in her face as she fought for control. "And the long-term profile isn't so great, either." He lowered his voice. "We're both going to have to start thinking about someone else first for a good long while, 'Randa. You might want to get into the habit." Miranda jerked back, red dropping across her vision for an instant, but one look in Shepard's eyes told her she wasn't going to be able to sway him. If she'd had any doubts, they would have ended with his next sentence. "I'll make this an order if I have to, Miranda."

"That won't be necessary," Miranda replied in her best you're-sleeping-on-the-couch tone as she turned on her heel. "I'll supervise operations from the CIC." She threw a little extra sway into her hip as she walked away, just to remind him of what he wouldn't be touching for another couple days, then walked over to her station in the CIC. She didn't look up when the field team left for the shuttle deck, still smoldering at that finger, the expression that had been on John's face…

…and most of all, the fact that she knew deep down he was right. She'd just assumed she would be going, the way she would on any other mission this important. It wasn't that she'd deliberately disregarded the baby, it was just that keeping John safe was more important. She thought. Of course, this was a routine drop, probably no more dangerous than a regular survey mission barring the radiation. Radiation to which the tiny life inside her was uniquely vulnerable. Hell. Why had she thought she was cut out to be a mother again?

Miranda was still brooding when the Kodiak curved down onto Haestrom, its telemetry signal dissolving to static in the blanket of particles flaring out from the star Dholen. Time flowed past her, slow as honey, as an hour went by, then two. After three she raised her head to the orbital view, and tapped the intercom.

"Joker? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Uh, can't say without reading your mind, and I think we're both happier I can't do that." Moreau paused. "But I'll give you a freebie: I was just thinking Shepard should have sent some kind of message by now. Even if he hadn't found anything, he'd have put up a comm relay by now just to bitch about it."

"Full marks." Miranda quirked a slight smile. "Now get us down there. Traynor, open your bag of tricks. Joker's going to get us in close, and then you're going to raise the team one way or another. Got it?"

"Got it, ma'am." The black-haired woman bent to her console as the holo-tank schematic of the Normandy flared with light, the ship's hull heating up as they drew closer and closer to the dying star. Closer, and puffs of vapor started to come from the dorsal heat sink, as overloaded coolant began to vent into space. Closer-

"Jesus!" Traynor jumped back from her console. Before Miranda could even turn, she jabbed her finger on the speaker button, and CIC filled with the sounds of battle cutting in and out of the static.

"Flank! Flank! Watch the flank!"

"- AM KROGAN!"

"Tali, can you see if they-"

"-can't get- don't correspond to any known-DOWN!"

"'m out."

"Here, make it last."

"Normandy, Normandy, this is Commander Shepard, do you-"

"Keelah, they're everywhere!"

Miranda didn't hear any more of it, because the elevator doors slammed shut behind her, slapping the button down onto MAX EMERG as she keyed the intercom.

"Flight deck, this is Lawson. Listen carefully. Here's the situation…"

"We can assume the first Kodiak is either down, or Shepard and the landing party are cut off from it." Miranda swept her gaze over each of the three Marines in turn, taking in their faces. Calm and businesslike, thank God, and if they didn't have quite the perfect self-assurance John or Garrus gave off at least there was no sign of nerves or a greenhorn's foolish stupidity. The old crew might have been dispersed across the galaxy, but Normandy's Marines were all Reaper War veterans with multiple walks in hell behind them. "Other than that, we don't know anything, so the plan is simple. We hit dirt hard, and anything that isn't John, Tali, Grunt, or Garrus dies. Got it?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Miranda nodded briskly.

"Good. Then let's get to it." She turned to the shuttle's other passenger. "I hope there won't be anything for you to do, Doctor. Unless there is-"

"Don't worry about me, Lawson." Karin Chakwas locked the visor of her gleaming new combat suit in the down position and gave Miranda a level stare. "I may have volunteered, but I don't have any particular urges towards killing myself. I like my brains unfried, thanks." Miranda winced.

"You know, someday you are going to have to let that go."

"Probably." Chakwas gave her a twisted half-smile. "But not today."

"Fifteen seconds, Ma'am." Flight Warrant Kidd's voice had an edge to it, and for a moment Miranda wished they had Cortez along. But of course, he was wherever John was-

And then she saw exactly where John was.

It had been some kind of public plaza, once, when Haestrom had been a living world under a quiet sun. Now it was an expanse of sun-blasted brick fronted by arcade-like structures of what looked like adobe, the still-intact roofs and pillars offering some hint of shelter from the sun's intense radiation. Miranda could see the bullets and grenades coming out from the arcade, John's team frantically pouring fire into-

"What the **fuck **is that?"

A phalanx of security mechs was advancing across the plaza towards John's team, expressionless faces set as they moved forward heedless of the lashing rays of the sun or the fire coming their way. On the flanks other shapes darted in and out, stealing in towards the flanks as they snapped shots at the trapped team. And in back of the mechs were two huge human shapes that seemed to be formed out of featureless black, but fuzzy around the edges as though they were made of static. As she watched one of them extended an arm towards John's team, and it dissolved into a stream of tiny black particles that lanced out at one of the pillars, eroding it in seconds into a barely-there lump of stone. Miranda shook her head to clear it and turned to the Marine who'd spoken.

"It doesn't matter what they are, or how. For now all I need to know is that they're between Shepard and me, which means all you need to do is keep the rest off my back while I tear them into little, tiny pieces. We can sort the details later."

And then the ramp was open, blasting-hot winds lashing at them as she lead the charge out of the Kodiak, the Shuriken coming off her hip to stitch a line of fire into a combat-armored turian who'd unwisely stopped to gape at the approaching shuttle. The Marines charged behind her, laying down a withering barrage of fire as her barriers screamed protest at the radiation. For just a moment she caught John's face, peeking out from behind cover. Their eyes met, and she could see that smile, the little shake of his head. Could almost hear him saying "I should have known better than to keep you out of it." Then she turned, her hand lashing out at a security mech until it spat sparks and toppled to the pavement. John and his squad were breaking cover now, sprinting for the shuttle, and the mercs were diving for cover. Miranda turned towards those impossible _things_, somehow semi-transparent in the harsh glare like swarms of bees held in human form-

-just in time to see a cloud of black moving towards her, swarming over her, and then pain, a thousand hot needle stings over every inch of her skin as she crumpled, screaming-

-brilliant blue flare of a tech mine, pain cutting out, but heat, oh the heat. Something must have happened to her suit-

-Hands picking her up, carrying her away, but the black was following her- no, it was a different black, a wash across her eyes that-

-John looking down, face clenched with anger and fear and things she'd never seen across it, and she tried to mouth to him, _I'm sorry_-

-And the shuttle door slammed, lifting off, but too late, as the last thing Miranda took down with her into the black was Chakwas' despairing wail.

"Oh, _shit_!


	4. Indefinitely Suspended

As most of you have probably figured by now, this story's on indefinite hiatus. I thought I knew where it was going, but the plot I had in the back of my head just wouldn't gel. At the end of the day I think it was a mistake to write a sequel to Square One- I should have left it with Miranda getting the happy ending she'd earned, but I wanted there to be more to the story. Even when there wasn't.

I apologize to everybody reading this, because I just can't finish what I've started. Someday I may be able to, but for now I think it's best to leave it here and try to move on to something new. All I can say is, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and hopefully someday I'll be smart enough to figure out how this ends.

...And for anyone who actually paid attention to the cliffhanger, no, Miranda is not dead.


End file.
